


The Last Kiss

by Nixxi



Series: A Collection of Kisses [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Lost Love, M/M, Post-Episode Ignis Verse 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:03:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21840934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nixxi/pseuds/Nixxi
Summary: A truck ran a red on Mystic King’s Boulevard,Noct said.The car rolled twice. Gladio…he…shit, Specs.Ignis takes a deep breath and steps around the curtain.In the aftermath of a traffic accident, Ignis says his final goodbye to Gladio.
Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia/Ignis Scientia
Series: A Collection of Kisses [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1567678
Comments: 15
Kudos: 43





	The Last Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost and based on a prompt.

Ignis hasn’t been alone with Gladio in six years, but he’s thought about him every day.

Their lives weren’t supposed to be like this. They were happy together once. In the long night, they talked about the things they’d do together after the dawn, both of them excited for what the future would bring. Ignis thought his heart would belong to Gladio forever. He believed Gladio would always be there when he laid his head down at night, and again when he woke in the morning. After thirteen years together, they were inseparable.

Until the dawn came, and they grew apart. 

The realities of working for the crown, and at a time when Lucis was balanced on the edge of a knife, were too much for their relationship to withstand. Slowly, Ignis lost himself in his work. And so did Gladio. It was no one’s fault. They just looked at each other one day and realized the spark was gone. Leaving was the easiest solution; repairing what had crumbled was more effort than either of them was able to expend. They mutually agreed to go their separate ways, content to love each other from a distance.

As much as Ignis has missed him over the years—missed touching and kissing him rather than exchanging small talk in a crowded room—he isn’t going to see him now because he wants to.

_Ignis._ The memory of Noct’s strained, somber voice is like a lingering nightmare. _There’s something you need to know. It’s about Gladio._

The pastel green halls of Insomnia General’s private ICU wing are hushed and empty tonight. Ignis walks them like his feet belong to someone else, counting the numbers beside each door as his stomach churns with dread. Five. Six. Seven.

Eight.

He slows to a stop, hesitating on the threshold. The door is open, the curtain drawn around the room like a shroud, but the light is on behind it. Ignis can see the shape of someone in the bed.

No. Not someone.

Gladio. 

_A truck ran a red on Mystic King’s Boulevard_ , Noct said. _The car rolled twice. Gladio…he…shit, Specs_.

Ignis takes a deep breath and steps around the curtain. 

The first thing he sees is Gladio lying in the hospital bed, eyes closed, his face swollen with purple bruises. He’s hardly recognizable. Only the faded ink on his bare arms and the mane of soft, dark hair that spills across the pillow give away that it’s really him. There’s a tube in his mouth, forcing air into his lungs from the ventilator at his bedside. It’s the only thing keeping him alive now. The world tilts, and Ignis has to grip the footboard to hold himself upright. 

It can’t be real. It simply can’t.

_There was catastrophic brain trauma_ , the nurse at reception told him, in a hushed, sympathetic voice. _It’s common in serious traffic accidents like these. In some cases, recovery is possible, but he hasn’t responded to external stimuli. I’m so sorry._

In other words, there’s no activity in the brain stem. The machines may tether his body to this world, but the Gladio he loved is already dead. 

Shaken, he looks away from Gladio long enough to find his wife sitting in the chair beside him, her eyes puffy and red, with their two-year-old daughter sleeping in her lap. When she meets his gaze, her face crumples, and she holds out her hand to him. He takes it, squeezing gently.

“Vesta,” he murmurs. Perhaps consoling her will take his mind off his own pain, if only for an instant. “I am so sorry. If there’s anything I can do—”

She shakes her head, letting out an unsteady breath. “Thank you. Just being here is enough.” She smiles at him blearily, her eyes bright with tears, and then her lower lip starts to quiver. “He would’ve wanted you to come.”

Ignis nods, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I should be thanking you, for giving me the chance to…” _To say goodbye. To have this last moment with the man I let slip through my fingers. To tell him how I feel—how I’ve always felt—before you turn off the machines._ “Well, to be here with him.”

“I know what he meant to you.” Vesta looks away as she says it, biting her lower lip when it starts to quiver again. Gladio never made a secret of his relationship with Ignis. Inviting him to come here, knowing Gladio loved him once, must have been difficult for her. “I’d never be able to forgive myself if you didn’t get to see him one more time.”

Ignis nods, squeezing her hand before releasing it. “Thank you.”

She rises from the chair and cradles her sleeping toddler to her chest, wiping her tears away with her thumb. “I’ll let you have a few minutes with him.”

“Are you sure? You should stay—” 

She shakes her head. “I’m going downstairs to get a coffee. I’ll be right back.” She moves to the curtain, then pauses, glancing back. “You won’t leave him alone, will you?”

“No,” Ignis assures her. “I won’t leave him. I promise.”

With a final nod, she goes, and Ignis takes her place next to the bed, looking down at what’s left of the man he adored. The Shield who stood between him and the daemons is no more. _Broken pelvis_ , the nurse said, _shattered vertebrae, fractured femurs. Torn muscles. Multiple contusions. Internal bleeding_. The number of injuries, and the severity of them, is dizzying. It’s a wonder he didn’t die at the scene, crushed by tonnes of steel. What was the last thing he thought, before his consciousness was snuffed? Was he afraid? 

Or did it happen too fast for that?

His first instinct is to take Gladio’s hand, but he finds it bruised, swollen, and splinted where it lies on the sheets. So Ignis places a hand on his arm instead, tentatively, as if the lightest touch will break him for good, and consoles himself with the familiar heat of Gladio’s skin.

“Hello, love,” he says softly. “It’s me.”

Gladio doesn’t answer. Foolishly, Ignis thought perhaps he would—that perhaps the sound of his voice would undo this terrible mistake and rouse Gladio from oblivion. But Gladio only lies there, his lovely eyes closed, never to look upon Ignis again. 

Gladio will never touch him again, or smile at him, or reminisce about the days they fought side by side. He’ll never come home from work to kiss his wife, or watch his daughter grow up. He’ll never raise the next Shield of Lucis.

Gladio will be forever forty-one. And Ignis will have to live the rest of his life knowing these precious years with Gladio could have been his, if only he hadn’t been so short-sighted. If only they’d fought to keep the flame alive. 

But he belongs to someone else now.

Eyes burning with unshed tears, he reaches out and strokes Gladio’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. His skin is still soft, his lashes like feathers when Ignis’s knuckles brush against them. If he closes his eyes, he can picture Gladio smiling up at him, relaxed and beautiful in the bed they shared, one arm tucked behind his head and the sheets pooled around his waist. He pictures those golden eyes soft with affection, trained, as always, on Ignis. This is the Gladio he wants to remember. This is the Gladio of his dreams.

But when he looks down, all he sees is the shell that held Gladio’s soul.

Throat aching, he leans forward and presses a kiss to Gladio’s cheek, then his forehead, then his hair, hot tears coursing down the slope of his nose to wet his lips. He pushes his face into the pillow next to Gladio’s head, shaking uncontrollably as the pain howls inside him, unassuaged.

_I still love you._

Ignis chokes on the words. He turns his face to bury it in Gladio’s hair, smelling blood and oil and sweet strawberry shampoo. It brings back all the longing he’s denied these past six years, longing for a man who’s now beyond his reach. He’ll never know if Gladio still loved him, too. He’ll never know if, one day down the road, there might have been a future for them again.

Perhaps that’s for the best. Not knowing means he can pretend.

He forces himself to take even breaths. The tears dry on his face. Slowly, as he strokes Gladio’s hair, he calms. He listens to the steady whooshing of the ventilator, and the intermittent beeping of the heart monitor, counting down the last minutes of Gladio’s life. 

None of this feels real. But it is. Soon, he’ll be living in a world where Gladio no longer exists. 

Somehow—someday—he’ll have to find peace in that. 


End file.
